A right interpretation of John’s text , does not lead to exclude, but to catch the deep signification and the expressive value of the rite. Human elements are absolutely necessary for a true ritual action that helps to make live anew a religious experience always coming from a divine initiative. And when this experience of sacred reveals itself in the fullness of incarnation and in the mysterious interlacement of death and resurrection, only the main actors of those events are able to raise us to the possibility of living again that mysterious and unspeakable experience through the rite. The Spirit and truth are the elements that can make us able and raise us to a true worship of the Father.

We come today to achieve the celebrative action by means of a liturgical book, approved and published by the church’s authority, which, as it establishes the editio typica of the text, defines also the «typical» form of the celebration, within a determined ritual tradition. The celebrative «practice’s model» translates itself in «practices of the model». That are not the same, because they include several different variables according to the context. How do we come from book to celebration? This article explains the hermeneutical task towards to the liturgical text and shows the relation between ars celebrandi and liturgical style with liturgical books.

In the context of sacred and anthropology, the theological and liturgical reflection can contribute to the announcement of the kerygma, within all elements that post-modernity presents today. In this line the A. explains the question about mystery and its symbolization, moving from Christ who, as he makes visible the beauty of God the Father, has allowed to contemplate the divinity’s splendour in the sensible experience of humankind. Among the symbolic languages that interact in liturgy, that of light involves the architect particularly. From him are depending creative solutions in order to achieve liturgical spaces, as in other times attention was given to the rose window of the front façade or to the stained glass windows of the church.

In this article the A. first stresses the link between roman liturgy’s evolution, Ceremonials compilation and the development of Master of ceremonies office. From the early simplicity that was typical for the action of a Bishop of Rome, it has come to the complexity of a liturgy that was linked to the life of the pope’s court. The Avignon period marked the top of this evolution. Secondly the Master of ceremonies is introduced as his figure is wanted by Vatican II. In consequence of this, the task of Master of ceremonies has been also changed. Some of his qualities are stressed by the Caeremoniale episcoporum: attention to the liturgical congregation, fostering the brightness of the beauty through noble simplicity of gestures, signs and words; he has to act with a maximum of discretion in order to give space to the unique protagonist, le Lord Jesus Christ. He must engage himself in the study of liturgy’s true spirit and in penetrating first of all the mystery that is celebrated, so that he could introduce others to it.

Participation: it the key word of the liturgical reformation, that was already stressed by the liturgical movement of XIX-XX century, and was deepened and theologically elaborated during the Vatican II, which finally fostered it. Participating to the liturgy in a suitable way is the top of faith. Liturgy is not a moment that is pulled out from the context of ordinary life, and is abstract and aloof from all that surround us. On the contrary, it is a mystery that is deeply rooted in human life, whose celebration needs a true participation on behalf of believers. That is why liturgy needs to be prepared and followed. Therefore there is a space which precedes the celebration and makes a full participation possible; and there is a space that follows the celebration and makes the liturgy fruitful, if we draw from it the life giving strength.

In this note the A. takes a swift look to the most ancient texts of roman liturgy and to those more modern of the Missal that was promulgated by Paul VI, but the documents of Vatican II are also examined. Only the meaning of sollemnitas and its derived is studied here, even if it is well known that there is a series of synonyms that express aspects of solemnity as it is referred to the liturgical celebration. The conclusion is that sollemnitas generally indicates the liturgical celebration as a whole in itself. So there is solemnity when the liturgical celebration expresses all its elements in a unitary way and respecting the nature of its different parts: readings, prayers, acclamations, gestures, songs, moments of silence, etc.

Liturgy is not made, but we receive it. This is the regula aurea of the ars celebrandi. In the light of Praenotanda and of Caeremoniale episcoporum, the A. takes in consideration how it could be today the role and contribution of a Master of ceremonies regarding the ars celebrandi. It is a ministry that needs to be discovered all again, because it can do an educational work, so that the celebrating congregation may be helped to live liturgy not as a show, but as a reflex of God’s Trinity. In this sense the Master of ceremonies has also the task to be a magister of an authentic celebrating, in order to educate the christian community to perceive and understand the constitutive elements of traditio and their lasting vitality.

A right ars celebrandi has the task of taking into a peculiar consideration the languages that are typical of the liturgy, both verbal and not verbal, without falling into temptation of giving to the liturgy only a functional and instrumental role. The celebration is made by a plurality of codes, that should be free of speaking and to whom should be allowed to express themselves without pretending to superimpose on them or replace them with unnecessary and at same time ineffective explanations. Within liturgy, the rite expresses and contains some messages, but the possibility of living these messages as a concrete experience of a personal meeting with the God’s saving action is given by significant codes, by whom the ritual action is set up.

The figure of Magister caeremoniarum arises in Milan by will of saint Charles Borromeo. Theological studies, pastoral attention, organizing cleverness are some of qualities that are requested in order to exercise a true role of liturgical direction towards the cathedral and the entire diocese. During the time in which the Tridentine laws came into achievement, the Master of ceremonies revealed himself as a key man of the Ambrosian reformation, as it is possible to verify in Orazio Casati, who was «mastro di ceremonie» of archbishop Federico Borromeo and is author of Caeremoniale ambrosianum.

When Turks arrived to the Balkans (XIV century), conversion to the islam was fostered, if not imposed. While Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians held out, referring to the byzantine liturgy, that was celebrated in their own languages, Croats and Albanians, who were catholic, tried in different ways to break one of the distinctive features of roman universalism: the latin language. The most comprehensive and complete work is that of Giovanni Buzuku, whose Messale is kept in a unique surviving copy at Apostolic Vatican Library, and was discovered first in 1740 and again in 1909. Since this last date, arise all related studies and the two critical editions. The present essay aims to enlighten aspects that are more properly historical and liturgical and have been neglected by scholars until now.

The text is a translation of the presentation of Concordantia Missalis Hispano-Mozarabici that is used in the Archdiocese of Toledo and was newly published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (MSIL 57, Vatican City 2009). It is a short introduction to the spanish-mozarabic euchology, to its most remarkable features, above all as they concern some ambivalent terms and peculiar contents.

Moving from Missale Gallicorum secundum consuetudinem Messanensis Ecclesie, that was newly published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (MSIL 53, Vatican City 2009), the A. outlines an interesting excursus about the history of liturgy and of Catholic Church in Sicily between XI and XII centuries. So we have here a contribution that adds an important element in order to reconstruct the history of roman liturgy and its spreading in the crucial turning point that happened in the first centuries of second millennium.